Russian poet Alexander Pushkin is considered by many to the the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. Pushkin's great-grandfather, was Abram Petrovich Gannibal (1696–1781), a Black African page raised by Peter the Great.

Zinaida Gippius, a Russian poet, a co-founder of Russian symbolism and one of the most intelligent women of her time. She left Russia in 1917 not to be executed. The Bolsheviks planned her assassination for the poems she wrote against them in France where she lived with her husband. They failed as she died earlier. || "Slaves, liars, murderers, thieves or fakers - I hate you all. But you, my Jude, you, all traitors, I hate most of all" | Image: Gippius, ca 1910. She is 40 years old in this…